St Helens was ranked 'high priority' for £3.6bn Towns Fund

Last September, St Helens was one of 101 towns invited to develop proposals for a share of the Government’s £3.6 billion Towns Fun.

Downing Street said the selected towns were areas with proud industrial and economic heritage, but which have seen their economic growth stall while other towns have prospered.

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A report in the National Audit Office (NAO) released this week has revealed the process ministers used to select 101 English towns, and has led to accusations that the government diverted millions of pounds to Tory marginal seats prior to the general election in December.

It shows that more than 60 of those towns were chosen by ministers, led by housing and communities secretary Robert Jenrick.

Many of the seats were either Tory target seats or Conservative-held seats with slim majorities, meaning hundreds of areas were ruled out.

The NAO report reveals that an initial assessment of all 1,082 towns across England was undertaken by the department’s officials.

Officials then assessed there were 541 towns across England potentially eligible for Town Deals.

These 541 eligible towns were then scored and ranked using a weighted formula across multiple criteria, with income deprivation the most relevant of the few town-level indicators available at the time.

These towns were then broken down into high, medium and low-priority groups.

The department placed 40 towns in the high-priority group, which were those with the highest scores within each region, scored highly across most criteria.

Officials recommended to ministers that all 40 high-priority towns be selected to bid for funding, and that no additional explanation for their selection was required.

St Helens was one of these towns.

The towns deemed to be medium priority represented the biggest chunk.

The report says that officials recommended that ministers select up to 60 medium-priority towns out of 380 that had been designated in this category, depending on how many low-priority towns they chose.

This would bring the total number of selected towns to 100, although ministers ultimately selected 101 towns.

Ministers were then left to select towns for Town Deals from the group of 181 low-priority towns.

The report says officials recommended that ministers choose relatively few low-priority towns and record a strong rationale for any selected.

Ministers selected 12 low-priority towns, including three in the North West.

All of these low-priority towns were either Conservative held seats or target seats that were ultimately won by the Tories in the December general election.

One medium-priority area that was overlooked was Newton-le-Willows, a strong Labour seat that was held by St Helens North MP Conor McGinn.

Conor McGinn, Labour MP for St Helens North

Another deprived area that did not even make the 541-town long list was Leigh – which saw James Grundy pull off a huge general election shock by winning the seat for the Tories in December.

Mr McGinn, shadow minister of state for security, said the NAO report raises some “serious questions” over the selection process.

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The Labour MP said: “I’m obviously pleased that a strong bid and concerted lobbying from St Helens saw us make the 10 per cent of towns that went through to the final stage of applications for this grant.

“But these revelations raise serious questions about why other towns like Newton-le-Willows, Wigan and Leigh were overlooked.

“The Government must explain how and why it selected some of the places it did and ensure that these decisions are based on merit and need, rather than any political bias or campaigning.”